A grievance arbitration tribunal recently ruled1 on
whether it was legal for a federally regulated Canadian employer, a
public transit authority, to install 27 video cameras in and around
its workplace. While the tribunal affirmed that the majority of the
cameras were legal, it ordered some of the ones installed inside
the employer's facilities to be removed.
The facts
The Société de transport de l'Outaouais (STO)
is a public transit authority that provides bus services in the
Gatineau and Ottawa area. In 2007 it was chosen to benefit from a
federal government program to beef up the security of urban transit
operations in Canada. Experts were engaged to carry out a risk
assessment and a security plan for the STO's facilities was
devised. This resulted in the STO implementing a number of
measures, including mandatory security and terrorism training for
employees, erection of a new security fence, introduction of a
system of access cards for employees, and a video
